I'm surprised there's not an article on this! Yesterday word and video broke on the third Bioshock game!

Bioshock Infinite is actually a prequel with a different setting and story but with similar themes and game play.

This game takes place in 1912 on the flying air city of Columbia, built to show off the prowess of circa 1900 America, but it quickly fell into insanity like Rapture. Where Bioshock used water and darkness, this setting will use air (as in a mile up in the sky!) and brightness.

I think it looks pretty cool. While I loved the Rapture setting a lot, the second game was pretty much more of the same and I'm looking forward to this new setting and story.

Let’s cut to the chase: at this point, it appears the game’s major themes are American Imperialism and fear of immigration. By its simple existence, it’s drawing lines between what happened at the start of the last century and the start of this one. It is, at least potentially, about as political as it gets.

Click to expand...

I think I'm going to like this game.

And I don't care what Ken Levine says; it's a terrible, terrible title. Of course 'Bioshock' isn't exactly an appealing title in the first place.

The brand name is just a smart business move, much like that new X-COM game that looks nothing like anything in the series' history. I don't mind if an existing franchise name is used to push something different--maybe that will expose people to games they otherwise wouldn't have played.

I have a feeling that this is the original IP that Levine has been working on for quite some time, and Take Two simply mandated that it be branded with the BioShock title for sales and marketing reasons.

It looks good but it does feel like someone took another story/theme and reworked it into a Bioshock sequel/prequel. There's far too little to know just what the game is really about yet but it does hint at the whole Imperialism angle.

I.... don't know. I'm a fan of Bioshock and rapture and the eerieness that accompanies that. I saw the trailer and while it was relatively ambiguous and thrilling, I don't know if I really like the storyline or the atmosphere. But, I'll give it a look-see.

Meh... to me, BioShock is the world of Rapture. It's being underwater. It's splicers and Big Daddies. This is just taking an entirely new story, new setting and time time period and slapping the BioShock branding on it to make it more marketable. But to me, this is NOT BioShock.

I'm not saying that this will be a bad game. It might be an awesome game. I just don't think it should be connected to the existing franchise.

If the bean-counters at 2K games think the game will make x% more money simply by having the BioShock name on it, it's going to have the name on it. You and I have the luxury of making an artistic decision, the publishers and developers less so.

I'm willing to bet they'll shoehorn in some characters related to the first BioShock games to keep continuity.

Levine talks about President McKinley questioning whether they should annex the Philippines, just freed from Spain. At which point Levine reads a full quote from McKinley on the issue, as he tossed and turned whether he should do this potentially horrible thing…

"I walked the floor of the White House night after night until midnight; and I am not ashamed to tell you, gentlemen, that I went down on my knees and prayed to Almighty God for light and guidance more than one night. And one night late it came to me this way – I don’t know how it was, but it came: (1) That we could not give them back to Spain – that would be cowardly and dishonorable; (2) that we could not turn them over to France or Germany – our commercial rivals in the Orient – that would be bad business and discreditable; (3) that we could not leave them to themselves – they were unfit for self-government – and they would soon have anarchy and misrule over there worse than Spain’s was; and (4) that there was nothing left for us to do but to take them all, and to educate the Filipinos, and uplift and civilize and Christianize them, and by God’s grace do the very best we could by them, as our fellow men for whom Christ also died. And then I went to bed and went to sleep and slept soundly."

That’s what Bioshock: Infinite is about.

When the demo finishes and Levine leaves the stage, and an enormous image appears on the background. A presidential figure with the bell of liberty in one hand, surrounded by crude stereotypes of immigrants of all stripes. The legend beneath it screams: “It is our holy duty to guard against the foreign hordes”. Repurposed period propaganda posters set the tone. “Her eyes.. so blue! Her skin… so white!” asks one poster “… or are they?” before warning about hidden genetic [im]purity. They permeate the game – “FOR FAITH! FOR RACE! FOR FATHERLAND!” caught my eye along with warnings about the ever-elusive “they” taking your gun, wife and just about everything else.

Click to expand...

It seems clear enough that Columbia in the game is America, and that its terrible transition from peaceful world fair to rogue war machine mirrors America's own ideological fall from grace. Like Rapture, Columbia is the failure of a dream.

Regardless of whether or not one agrees with the message, this is clearly a game with something to say, and if nothing else is notable for that reason alone. Bioshock 2 picked an easy target (which isn't to say I agree with the simplistic notion that Lamb = Marx; I suspect that those who actually go along with that didn't pay nearly close enough attention to either Lamb or Marx ) and Bioshock's was only a little more challenging; but it strikes me that the sacred cow chosen for this game could conceivably ruffle enough feathers to have a measurable impact on its financial success; particularly given that the 'it's an FPS therefore I shall buy it and play it like Halo (and then complain when it turns out not to be like Halo)' crowd was already dispensed with back with the first game.